January 2012
29 posts
23 tags
A Breath, A Year & Ten Thousand Experiences
Isn’t it funny how time shifts? When one moment marks the difference between this feeling and that behavior, this year and the next? It’s always in these twilight times that I feel most comfortable. After all, I choose to make my living navigating between the worlds. The line between day and night, living and dying — that’s my wheelhouse.
I resolved this past year to keep...
December 2011
32 posts
15 tags
When Someone Doesn't Listen
There are those times when intuitives give up, throwing up their hands and swearing there’s nothing more to be done for a particular client. You can read them, point out energetic issues, even delve into past lives and earier times in this incarnation to dislodge personal issues and obstacles. But you can’t make someone want to preserve their own self-interests. That’s why lots...
11 tags
Oh Energy, I Love You
Like many people, I deal in energy every day. Since I began to learn various healing techniques, I’ve come to look at the world in a very different way, which is governed by how we manage our energies relative to the other people, places and objects around us. It sounds a little cold, I realize, but it’s really anything but. We all deal in energy every day. Some of us are just more...
3 tags
200 Posts and Counting!
Hard to believe that I started this daily blog 200 posts ago, to try and reframe the daily events of my life, in an attempt to find small moments of beauty and impermanence, capture times of gratitude, and even reconfigure trying days with these techniques. I didn’t have a huge number of assumptions about what it would be like, nor did I feel that this would “go” anywhere. In...
12 tags
The Healing Disease
I never believed I could really be a healer, instead buying into the notion that healers were somehow vaunted or gifted individuals who were either born with special gifts or somehow transcended the space-time continuum to achieve these mystical powers. Part of me assumed that healers had to go through many years of medical school or put in ages of residency work before spending the rest of their...
13 tags
Metta World Peace
As the new NBA season finally gets under way, I’ve been thinking about Ron Artest’s name change to Metta World Peace in the off season. For those who have studied meditation, you probably know that metta is a Sanskrit word that, loosely translated, means loving kindness. On the surface, it has as much in common with the physical nature of the NBA as a day at the spa, especially coming...
9 tags
Reframing the Big Release
I can’t be the only person out there who feels like they need a good long release after spending time with family members during the holidays. From the ugly Christmas sweaters to Uncle Harvey who drinks a tad too much egg nog and tells off-color jokes at the dinner table, there’s always one in every bunch.
This year, it’s a bit more bittersweet for me. I’m making some...
16 tags
The Tao of Christmas Cookies
At one time, I had to bake Christmas cookies in order to feel “done” with my holiday preparations. I made myself crazy trying to find new recipes, outdo myself on ingredients and general, all-around foodiness of said cookies, and even traveled to ethnic grocery stores in the middle of the night if garam masala was called for, or tiny, impossible to find black currants. Needless to say,...
11 tags
I Am, I Breathe
Wow, how important it is to watch your breathing during the holiday season. I’ve learned this lesson again and again over the past few days in one situation after another. I’ve recently taken up Pilates, which I love, though it’s painful as fuck. I’m fairly athletic, but more interested in continually moving my energy and making sure I don’t get stagnant — in...
6 tags
All Quiet
Christmas light are strung and gawked at. Presents are wrapped.
All is quiet in my house.
Brain is tired. More reframing tomorrow.
9 tags
Ch-Ch-Changes
Ever notice, if you’re not around your family members that often, how much they change from time to time? That the ground you thought you shared, those experiences long remembered, or blood bonds held in common, has been shrunk down to a mere few feet of space? What do you do in those instances, when that comes crashing into your consciousness? Do you walk away, thinking you have nothing...
14 tags
Young Adult, Getting Older
Saw Young Adult today, which was maybe apropos, since it was my birthday. The thought of growing older seldom enters my mind. I’m not sure why. It’s not like I defy time or anything like that. I get older, maybe a little more careful about trying to live longer. Maybe I work out more, eat healthier, try to protect my joints. You know, maybe give a crap about my existence a lot more...
10 tags
MisHearing the Words
You know when you read or hear a word you know and have seen a billion times before, but somehow this one time, for whatever reason, you hear or read it in a brand new way?
I love it when that happens.
Tonight, my husband gave me an iPod Nano. It’s so damn teeny that I’m glad I can clip it onto my clothes. But in the instructions they refer to plugging it in, and then using iTunes...
12 tags
Weird But True
An update to my issue with waiting: It’s a little better. I’ve been reframing throughout the weekend, because I really have no idea how long an answer might be forthcoming. It could be a few days, or even tomorrow, or it could be weeks, sometime after New Year’s perhaps. That’s part of the problem with waiting. You never have any real idea when you might get the info...
12 tags
Tracking the Most Interesting Things
I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not sleeping well these days, not out of any kind of bad things in my life (I’m doing pretty great in that area, thank you very much), but because my mind is busy seemingly all night, extending into the universe, tracking energies around the globe. The other night, I had a strong vision of being in Africa, being able to smell the air and feel...
14 tags
Oh Yeah ... And Then Some More Waiting
Ahhhhhhhhh … that’s the big exhale after getting through a tense but (I think) successful meeting today, with someone I admire a great deal, and someone I would love to work with in the future. It’s hard, once you ‘ve met someone like this — someone so powerful and wise — to do the waiting part that inevitably follows.
Maybe that means waiting for a response...
13 tags
The Waiting is the Hardest Part
I think it was Tom Petty who drawled about how difficult it was to sit around the wait for things to unfold, to allow the natural course of events to take shape. I, like many people, would prefer to shape my own life, and sometimes I’m not that good at waiting, even after 15 years of steady meditation practice.
I got my final proofs of my book cover, which I’m pretty sure I’m...
9 tags
Truth-Telling It Like It Is
Not that I watch Time magazine’s covers or anything, or am really engaged with much that they do (even though I a friend of mine works there, and I like her stuff), but I was really heartened to see that The Protestor, generally speaking, was their “Person of the Year.”
From the Arab Spring to the Occupy Wall Street forces scattered around the world, it’s been a year of...
11 tags
Reframing the Post Office at Christmas
Oh, United States Post Office, how you suck on a good day. But throw in a holiday, say Christmas mixed with a little Hanukkah, not to mention Kwanzaa and other holidays I probably don’t even know about, and you begin to suck on a scale heretofore unseen by humankind.
We know you’re broke. You’ve been dysfunctional and money-losing almost since your inception. We know your...
9 tags
Reframing the Dark
It’s rainy and cold in L.A. today, and even though I can’t whine too much about winters here (they’re probably analogous to a very mild fall most other places), sometimes you just miss the sun. I’m lucky. I have a job a love and a great personal life. Things are opening up a lot for me lately. I love encouraging other people to heal, follow their bliss, and find the people...
8 tags
On Growing Up
I can remember all the years of wishing I would grow up already, so I could go out and do cool things — go to clubs, smoke, drink and drive a car - but I can’t remember the precise moment I began to call myself a grown-up. Maybe it was when I owned my first vacuum cleaner and stopped having to drive to West Hollywood to borrow’s my friend’s every time I wanted to clean my...
5 tags
I Don't Want To
Today gave me a few opportunities to see how I resist, how I dig in my heels and say I don’t want to, even if whatever that is is the best thing for me. I suppose we all do this, to a certain extent. We don’t want the hassle of changing, or even being taken slightly out of the way as we march toward our dreams and goals. First I didn’t want to get out of bed. It was so warm...
13 tags
It's Not Unusual
You know those days when everything seems to change every few minutes, even by the hour, and you’re left at the end of the day feeling drained? That’s how today was for me. I had plenty of work to do and, with the dreaming part of my brain, am outlining a new book. I have realized I can’t be that happy if I’m not creating, so there you have it.
In the meantime, Uranus...
8 tags
Focusing
Ever attend a focus group? You know, those convenient little ways of picking up an extra $100 or so, where you have to sit in a room full of strangers and give your opinion for an hour or two? Sometimes, whenever I can make it work with my schedule, I do one of these and put the money into a travel fund for the future.
I love to take these opportunities to observe human nature, because it...
7 tags
Passion
Having studied Buddhism for the better part of fifteen years, there are a few things I understand. After all, you mostly hear the same concepts again and again, in stories, parables, and through the lenses of various teachers. Props for being original, and having the brains to couch some ancient wisdom in brand new ways, applicable to our decidedly modern lives. And meditation helps. Lots and lots...
9 tags
Anniversaries
Today’s a special day in my life for several reasons, not the least of which has to do with committing to spend the rest of my life with another person. We met serendipitously, we courted for a time, and then we decided to take it up a notch, to tie the knot, to marry. Part of me never thought I’d be married. I’m pretty independent, have my opinions, and value my freedom. But...
9 tags
Super Quick Post on Reframing
Had a great meeting with some posible producers today, about possibly turning my book into a movie or TV series, then spent the rest of it giving readings and energy healings. Felt great, then tired as hell. As I’ve written before, there’s no real way to reframe sleepiness. It’s just a signal that the body needs to rest and rejuvenate itself. Energy, I’ve found, also needs...
12 tags
Not My Choice
One of my favorite things as a spiritual practitioner is when I run into someone intractable, who has such a fixed view of reality that nothing could possibly sway him or her from that point. It may be an idea or belief, or just a notion that their way is THE way, or the ONLY way.
I also love it when this same intractability is applied to spiritual pursuits, even whole religions. We may do this...
5 tags
Something to Think About
Someone sent me this story today, of a man who calls himself the Secret Santa, who went around giving out $100 bills to people who seemed like they needed it this holiday season, in thrift stores and aid centers around Reading, PA, the U.S.A’s poorest city. I can’t get this image out of my mind, of truly random acts of kindness, and the tears with which this man’s generosity is...
11 tags
Beautiful Losers
Just got back from seeing John Patrick Shanley’s Danny and the Deep Blue Sea. Though I’ve seen other plays by him, I’ve never made it to a production of this one, and man I am glad I waited. Though Shanley’s famous for having written Doubt, which was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams, not to mention the excellent Viola Davis, as...
6 tags
Thursday's Belated Post
Still a day behind in posting, given that we’ve been without power for nearly 48 hours now. Makes it difficult to run a primarily Internet based business, not to mention the events of your daily life. I suppose there’s a message about patience in there somewhere, but I’m still trying to come down from the cursing jag at the power company for not being as proactive, not to mention...
6 tags
What I Would Have Posted
… if we didn’t lose power in Los Angeles last night, due to a wind storm with 100-MPH gusts of wind that knocked down trees, fried power lines and exploded more than one transformer:
Turns out you cannot frame the darkness, the sudden plunging into all you cannot see and the loss of access to the Internet, phones, laptops and even land lines (Who has those anymore? Me, I guess).
You...
